Vitalik Buterin's Private AI Setup Shields Crypto Transactions from Cloud-Based Threats
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has set up a private AI system on his own hardware to protect crypto transactions and safeguard his online presence. The setup reflects his concern that cloud-based AI tools pose a significant threat to personal privacy.
The AI system, running an open-source model called Qwen3.5:35B using software called llama-server, produces about 90 tokens per second on Buterin's laptop with an Nvidia 5090 GPU. This configuration allows him to use the AI comfortably in daily tasks.
Buterin keeps a full offline copy of Wikipedia and technical documentation stored locally on his machine, reducing the need for external search queries that he considers a privacy risk. He also connects his Ethereum wallet and messaging accounts to the AI system.